Robert Marion "Doc" Cunningham (1873–1951), was an American illusionist, stunt performer, and showman whose stage names included Zante, Cunning the Jail Breaker, Cunning the Handcuff King, Doc Cunning, The Mental Miracle Man, and Cunning the Supermind.
Early career and Australasian tour
Robert (Bob) Marion "Doc" Cunningham was born in Provo, Utah, on 12 April 1873. He began public performances as a magician under the name Zante, perhaps mimicking the stage name of another prominent Utah-born illusionist, Oscar Eliason, who had achieved considerable popularity in the US and Australasia as Dante the Great. By late 1899, after touring Montana, Idaho and California, Cunningham was being compared to Eliason, who had recently been accidentally killed during a highly successful Australian tour. Cunningham was even performing the same “bullet catch” trick which had become one of Eliason's trademark acts. On his first tour beyond North America, Cunningham showed his respect for Eliason by visiting his grave and meeting his widow, Edmunda (born Virginia Edmunda Hammer), between performances in Sydney in April 1902. In Australia, advertisements for Cunningham's show declared him to be “America's greatest and most popular magician”, assisted by a company of “clever American vaudeville artists”. But Cunningham made an unfortunate decision to open his Australian tour in New South Wales, just as Oscar Eliason's younger brother, Frank, was making a tour of the same state as “Dante the Marvellous”. Days before Cunningham's tour began, one reviewer had labelled Frank Eliason as the “king of modern magic”, noting that he had been performing before large audiences. After less than a month, Cunningham left for New Zealand, blaming “especially slack” show business conditions in Australia for disappointing ticket sales. In New Zealand, Cunningham was again promoted as “America's greatest magician” in programs featuring a company of vaudeville performers. Though he was rarely top-billed, there he won acclaim as he focused on sleight-of-hand tricks, touring for most of the rest of 1902.
Escape stunts and competition with Houdini
Soon after returning to the US from his Australasian tour, Cunningham began almost a decade of making escape stunts the focus of his performances, styling himself Cunning the Jail Breaker or Cunning the Handcuff King. His interest in escape acts had reportedly been sparked as a boy by his parents’ friendship with the county sheriff in Provo. Prior to his botched execution in 1879, convicted murderer Wallace Wilkerson had made a hole in the wall of the Provo Jail, and though he hadn't escaped, it had left a lasting impression on young Cunningham when he'd been allowed to crawl through it. Numerous times while on tour in the US in the early 1900s, he would urge local police to use their best handcuffs and other devices to secure him, then confound them by setting himself free. The resulting publicity helped boost ticket sales for Cunningham's stage act, in which he freed himself after having been shackled and handcuffed inside a locked steel cage, all the locks and other restraints having been carefully checked by audience members, often police officers. By early 1905, some reports were referring to Cunningham as a rival to the famous Harry Houdini (1874-1926) In one incident at Hurtig and Seamon's Music Hall in Harlem in May 1905, Houdini's elder brother, William Weiss, emerged from the audience and handed Cunningham a pair of handcuffs, challenging him to put them on and take them off within seven minutes. After struggling to open them, Cunningham declared them “fixed” and wouldn't return them. In an ensuing scuffle, Weiss was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. One of Cunningham's managers, J. M. Howard, would later recall “a great deal of professional rivalry” between his client and Houdini. “If either used a new publicity stunt, the other would soon adopt it,” he stated. However, according to Howard, Cunningham did not have the diving and swimming skills to match Houdini's ability to free himself from under water while handcuffed and leg shackled.For several months in 1907, beginning in New York, Cunningham toured in a melodrama called “From Sing Sing to Liberty” by Harry Clay Blaney. According to one report, Cunningham's handcuff work was made “the feature of the play”. In 1908 he toured Mexico, still focusing on escape acts, but also performing sleight-of-hand tricks.